Executive Briefings

Why Companies Can't Afford Not to Have an IT-centric Supply Chain

By: CBR Online 07.18.2014

Shifting supply chains to become driven by IT means businesses can standardise their processes and become less likely to run out of stock, says Dominic Regan, EMEA director of supply chain applications at Oracle.

With brands today shipping more goods than ever on an increasingly global scale, the margin for error in managing their supply chains has never been slimmer. Out-of-stock situations, failure to meet evolving compliance regulations, and shipping delays can have massive financial implications for companies causing serious damage to their reputation with customers.

To complicate things even further, many organisations have built very intricate, multichannel supply chains that connect a large number of suppliers all over the world. Whilst this allows brands to provide customers with the best products, it also opens the door to many more opportunities for costly setbacks as goods travel from origin to destination.

With so much at stake, it is hard to believe that 79 percent of businesses still use nothing more than spreadsheets to process supply chain data and manage their portfolios, according to Oracle Innovation Management Survey, 2014.

With brands today shipping more goods than ever on an increasingly global scale, the margin for error in managing their supply chains has never been slimmer. Out-of-stock situations, failure to meet evolving compliance regulations, and shipping delays can have massive financial implications for companies causing serious damage to their reputation with customers.

To complicate things even further, many organisations have built very intricate, multichannel supply chains that connect a large number of suppliers all over the world. Whilst this allows brands to provide customers with the best products, it also opens the door to many more opportunities for costly setbacks as goods travel from origin to destination.

With so much at stake, it is hard to believe that 79 percent of businesses still use nothing more than spreadsheets to process supply chain data and manage their portfolios, according to Oracle Innovation Management Survey, 2014.